Sports Digest

SPORTS DIGEST

December 09, 2005

Horse racing

Gulfstream Park eligible for slots

Gulfstream Park, which is owned by the Canadian company that also owns Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, will be eligible to get 1,500 Las Vegas-style slot machines under legislation passed by Florida lawmakers yesterday. Along with Gulfstream, a thoroughbred track owned by Magna Entertainment Corp., three other Broward County pari-mutuel facilities - a jai-lai fronton, a harness track and a greyhound track - will also get the machines if the legislation is signed by Gov. Jeb Bush, a move that's expected. The machines will be taxed at 50 percent, one of the highest rates in the country for slots at pari-mutuels, with all the state revenues going to education. Broward voters approved the machines in a March election.

BILL ORDINE

Jockey -- Stewart Elliott has asked Richard J. Codey, the acting governor of New Jersey, for a pardon that would allow the Kentucky Derby- and Preakness-winning jockey to avoid possible deportation over a 2001 guilty plea for aggravated assault.

Sled dog racing

Butcher treated for bone cancer

Four-time Iditarod winner Susan Butcher has left Alaska and her beloved kennel of sled dogs to undergo treatment for cancer, family members said. The musher received a diagnosis late last week of acute myelogenous leukemia, according to her husband, David Monson. Butcher, 50, began treatment Tuesday in Seattle and will continue chemotherapy for several months. Monson said the family is looking for a compatible bone marrow donor. Acute myelogenous leukemia is a cancer of blood-forming tissues of the bone marrow, according to the National Institutes of Health. Complete remission occurs in almost 80 percent of patients.

Figure skating

Injured Lysacek out of Grand Prix

Evan Lysacek, the top-ranked American, withdrew from the Grand Prix finals next week in Tokyo. The bronze medalist at the 2005 world championships has bursitis and tendinitis of his right hip.

Golf

M. Campbell ahead by 2 in Target event

Michael Campbell shot a 9-under-par 63 at Sherwood Country Club for a two-stroke lead over Darren Clarke in Thousand Oaks, Calif., in the first round of the Target World Challenge, a 16-man tournament that only counts at the bank. Campbell made five straight birdies while playing an eight-hole span in 8-under.

Dunhill Championship -- Phillip Archer of England shot a 6-under 66 to take a one-stroke lead over Jarmo Sandelin of Sweden in the rain-marred first round in Nelspruit, South Africa.

Tennis

Young youngest ITF world champ

Donald Young is now the youngest International Tennis Federation world junior champion. The 16-year-old from Atlanta clinched the year-end No. 1 ranking in boys tennis when he advanced to the quarterfinals of the Orange Bowl International Tennis Championships in Key Biscayne, Fla. and second-ranked Marin Cilic of Croatia lost in the third round.

Et cetera

USA Basketball honors Langhorne

Maryland forward-center Crystal Langhorne was selected by the USA Basketball executive committee as USA Basketball 2005 Female Athlete of the Year for her role in leading the U19 world championship team to an 8-0 finish and the gold medal at the FIBA world championship.

College basketball -- Philadelphia University's Herb Magee got his 800th victory when the Rams' men's team topped visiting Wilmington College, 95-68, making him the eighth coach in NCAA history to reach the milestone.

Olympics -- The U.S. Olympic Committee will finish this year with a deficit, typical in a non-Olympic year. But expenses will be several million less than expected because of cost-cutting and will be erased by a $37 million projected surplus in next year's budget, chairman Peter Ueberroth said.

Boxing -- Baltimore super middleweight (168 pounds) Tony Cygan (9-0, six knockouts) won a unanimous eight-round decision over James North (8-7-1, five KOs) of Weston, W.Va., Wednesday night before 1,800 at Martin's West.

Cycling -- Charly Gaul, who won the Tour de France in 1958 and the Giro d'Italia in 1956 and 1959, died in Luxembourg. He was 72.